Thats right. One year ago today, Melissa Plaut made her first post to her new blog at 3:13am EDT.

Originally read by friends and family, it began expanding audience base. Then, in late January, 2006, this little underground blog reached the attention of someone with the Associated Press newswire service, which did an article on her. Instant explosion! This generated an interview with one of the BIG network TV stations in NYC, which was eventually carried nationwide by the parent network's nightly news.

I wonder what it must have been like to check your stat-counter one day and see the same general trend in readership and then waking up the next day and seeing unbelievable numbers. And then about a week later having a readership that literally measured in the millions.

I know what I would have done. Just slouched back in my chair and said, "Holy Shit." When they climbed even higher, about a week later, I would have started laughing, saying, "Holy Fucking Shit!"

Melissa, thank you for entertaining all of us with your wit, your insight, and pictures of NYC that we never see from the Visitors Bureau of NYC.

Melissa has a book deal signed with Villard, an imprint of Random House, and it will be published sometime in 2007. If anyone knows Oprah, get her to add it to her bookclub listing, so M.P. can get very, very rich.

Melissa once commented that a fare told her that she had a very nice soft "Queens" accent. I listened to her do a reading on a radio show from Rocky Sullivans recently and was expecting to hear a "Fran Drescher" but instead she is very, very soft spoken with just a hint of Queens in her pleasant voice.